3 September 2011

The Bikes of Copenhagen #5 - Update

Many moons ago here on Cycle Chic we highlighted some of the bicycles that populate the bicycle lanes of the city. Looking back at our Bikes of Copenhagen post and the subsequent Danish Delight post we can see that things remain the same. Well, almost. The style - timeless, practical upright bicycles - continues unabated as it has for 125 years but there are some new brands that are making inroads on the market. So here is a quick and lazy Saturday morning update. Most of these bicycles are not available outside of Denmark or Scandinavia, but all the more reason to make a trip to Copenhagen. :-)

Having a healthy market featuring many different styles of bicycles for Citizen Cyclists is a key to promoting urban cycling to a mainstream audience.

Now Raleigh is not a Danish brand, of course, but here's an interesting story: When Raleigh stopped producing their classic designs from the 1920's, a Danish distributor wasn't at all pleased. These bikes were still popular in Denmark. As we understand it, he was allowed to licence the retro design and produce the classic Raleigh models solely for the Danish market and has done so ever since.

11 comments:

Jo
said...

When I visited Copenhagen earlier this year, one thing that surprised me was that among all the classic bikes I didn't spot a single Gazelle. Did I simply miss them, or are they less popular than elsewhere?

I think several of our best bikesmith is left our; Cykelmageren. (http://cykelmageren.dk/) in addition to making cool stylish mad to order bikes, they develop really beautiful parts, you won´t see anywhere else. If you visit Copenhagen/Denmark and want to check out the danish specialitis, do also check out Baisikeli (rent your bike here), Nihola (almost next door to the Vesterbro shop). and Christiania Bikes (well you are going to Christiania anyway, right?)

I doubt that Van de Falk is a Dutch brand, if only because of the spelling. Dutch hotel chain Van der Valk does operate a bike rental scheme from their hotels; these bikes are e-bikes made by Union. And Google doesn't turn up any bike manufacturer of that name, only referrals to Danish shops that sell them.

Apparently, some of our bike shops in Perth are selling more vintage style bikes at the moment than anything else!! That's very heartening as we have a long way to go in regards to developing a bike culture. I've been documenting a lot of what is happening on our locally as well as a few other Australian cities I have visited lately.....there are some very cool bikes out there on our streets...http://bellespedalsandchains.blogspot.com/